


That's Ranunculus

by mandysimo13



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Allergies, Fluff, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, flower shop au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandysimo13/pseuds/mandysimo13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt from dailyau - “I rented the apartment above your flower shop and in the last two months you’ve gotten a new flower I’m allergic to so I keep buying bouquets until I can figure out which kind it is” AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's Ranunculus

Thorin had been living above “That’s Ranunculus” for just over three months when it happened.

He had previously enjoyed waking up every morning with his windows open to the morning chill and the gently wafting aroma of fresh flowers. Everyday he made a point of stopping outside the shop to smell the arrangements that permanently sat outside the shop. The fact that there was a very cute, honey colored and curly headed man who ran the shop and often exchanged “good mornings” with him was also perk to his new residence.

But then for a whole week he had woken up with red, puffy eyes and a running nose.

At first he thought he was sick. Even though it was the middle of summer he knew it was possible. Despite the fact his company was small, just himself and twelve other men, it was ridiculously easy for one of them to infect the whole office with some nasty cold. But when no other symptoms of sickness erupted after the first couple days he suspected that allergies were the culprit.

After picking up some over the counter Claritin his symptoms subsided and he forgot about it entirely. He took his pills religiously for a week and his eyes thanked him endlessly. He still stopped every morning to wave good morning to the cute shop owner, still left his windows open at night, still stopped to smell the roses.

Then out of nowhere, a month later, Claritin stopped working.

In fact, no matter what type of antihistamine he tried he couldn’t stop his eyes from watering. He needed to find out exactly what type of plant was causing his eyes such hell. He couldn’t be expected to live in itchy agony forever, could he?

It was his day off when he walked into the flower shop searching for the culprit that had been making his life miserable. And then he promptly sneezed startling the man behind the counter.

“Good heavens,” the curly headed man said, hand clutched over his heart. “Gave me quite a start there!”

“My apologies,” Thorin said in between sniffles.

The man came around the counter to greet him proper. “Bilbo Baggins,” he introduced and holding out a hand to shake. “May I help you?”

Thorin was careful to extend the hand he hadn’t sneezed into and shook Bilbo’s hand. “Thorin Durin.” With the other hand he pointed to the ceiling, "I live upstairs.” His eyes were beginning to itch maddeningly again. _Get some stupid flowers and get yourself back upstairs before you start sneezing and dripping eye fluid everywhere,_ he screamed internally. “I wonder if I might get a bouquet of flowers.”

Bilbo chuckled, “well you’ve come to the right place, neighbor. Anything specific you’d like?”

Thorin shook his head and prayed for him to hurry. “No, no. I just,” he paused trying to find a suitable reason for him to be there other than snooping out offending pollen. “Just trying to brighten up the apartment. Little life, you know?”

“I know what you mean.” Bilbo flitted from table to table plucking a few stems here and there, all in oranges and yellows, before moving to a table that was primed for flower arrangement. “Do you have a vase to put them in?”

Thorin flushed pink. “N-no.”

“Well that won’t do at all,” Bilbo tutted. He instantly moved from the arrangement table and went through a door Thorin supposed would be a storage room. A minute later he reappeared carrying a bright blue, glass vase.

“Ah, now,” he said full of warmth, “I believe this will do.” Bilbo filled it with a few inches of water and then set himself to filling it with flowers. By the time he was finished Thorin had to restrain himself from itching his eyes. He hoped Bilbo didn’t find his excessive blinking creepy.

“That looks wonderful,” Thorin said a little bit too fast. “What are they called?”

Bilbo pointed out and named each flower in turn: begonia, chrysanthemum, and peonies.

“What do I owe you?”

“Twenty five for the whole bouquet,” Bilbo answered while he rang up the flowers at the registered.

Thorin blinked. This time out of confusion. That seemed rather cheap considering he was also buying a vase. “Does that include the vase?”

Bilbo looked up from the screen on the register and smiled at him. “Let’s just say it’s a housewarming gift.”

Thorin laughed, “you know I’ve lived here for close to five months now, right?”

Bilbo waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Belated as it may be, a gift it is.”

“Oh, well,” Thorin stammered, “that’s awfully generous of you.”

“Just being neighborly,” Bilbo said, adding a wink that made Thorin’s whole face grow hot. He quickly dug a few bills from his wallet and dropped them on the counter and scooped up the vase. Right then his traitorous eyes started to burn and Thorin needed to make an escape.

“Thank you, Bilbo,” he said as he made a beeline for the door. “See you around.”

“Anytime,” Bilbo called as he ducked out.

~*~

A month. It took him a whole month, eight bouquets, twenty different flowers to finally find the exact flower that had caused him so much distress. Yarrow. Fucking yarrow. All in all he wasn’t complaining overmuch. Because of the offending flower he had lovely fresh flowers in his apartment all the time brightening the place and making him smile. More importantly, he had begun talking to Bilbo who, despite Thorin’s constantly red eyes, flirted with him every time he went in the shop. Thorin almost never reciprocated due to his miserable condition and his urgency to leave so he could scrub his eyes in peace. But now that he knew the name of the bane of his existence he would do something about it.

Clutching the small flower stems, he stepped through the door and heard a new tinkling sound.

“Like the new bell,” Bilbo called from the back of the shop.

“How did you know it was me,” Thorin asked. Bilbo walked out of the storeroom and met Thorin at the counter. Finally having achieved his quest, Thorin was smiling triumphantly.

“Just had a feeling it'd be you. Looking for a new bouquet already?” He shoved his hands in his waistcoat pockets and grinned. “Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you so soon but I did just make you a new arrangement a couple days ago.”

“That will not be necessary.” He dropped the yarrow flowers onto the counter.

Bilbo frowned at the nearly crushed flowers. “Something wrong with them?” He inspected them for any damage beyond Thorin’s gripping them. “They seem to be rather healthy.”

“These,” Thorin said with a grin, jabbing a finger at them, “have been the bane of my existence for over a month.”

Bilbo cocked his head, confused. “I beg your pardon?”

Then Thorin’s brain caught up with him and he was suddenly mortified. “Uh…” was all he could manage to say for several seconds.

“How eloquent,” Bilbo huffed.

Thorin shook his head to clear away the embarrassment. “Sorry, I just-”

“Don’t like yarrow, I get it.”

“No!” Thorin groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Which promptly reminded them that they itched like mad and made them burn. “Fuck, sorry. I should explain.”

Bilbo, still holding the flowers delicately in one hand, crossed his arms and sniffed primly. “An explanation would help clear things up.”

Thorin took a deep breath and explained himself. “A couple months ago you got some new flowers in and I started having some nasty pollen allergies. I took some Claritin and was fine. But then they stopped working and I just had to find out what exactly it was that was making my face itch like crazy and that,” he pointed to the yarrow in Bilbo’s hands, “is it!”

“Oh dear,” Bilbo said. He looked at the flowers and frowned. “My apologies, Thorin. I didn’t know that they had affected you so.” Then his eyes went wide in sudden realization and he promptly started laughing and Thorin scowled.

“What’s so funny?”

“I-I just thought,” Bilbo gasped, “I just thought your red eyes were because you were stoned!” He chuckled into his hands. “Like all the time! I thought you wanted flowers to try and mask the smell.”

“What?!” It was absurd! _Thorin? pothead?_ He hadn’t smoked in years! “Why would you think that?” Then he looked down at his ripped jeans and band t-shirt, things he normally wore when not in the office, and gasped. “Oh my god, I _do_ look like a pothead!”

Thorin was mortified. He moved to leave but was stopped by Bilbo’s voice.

“Wait!” The shorter man skirted around the counter and reached to touch Thorin’s arm. “Is that really why you’ve been in so often?” Thorin nodded and Bilbo smiled warmly. “Why didn’t you just ask me what the new stock was before you filled you your apartment with irritating pollen?”

If was possible for Thorin’s cheeks and ears to turn redder he’d turn into a beardy tomato. “It never crossed my mind.”

Bilbo laughed again and pat Thorin’s shoulder. “Well, lucky for you I’ve stopped ordering them.” He leaned in and mock-whispered to Thorin, “they’re not big sellers. Was trial testing them.” He let his hand slip from Thorin’s shoulder and walked back behind the counter. “Should be out within another week or so.”

Thorin visibly relaxed and smiled. “Thank Yvanna.”

~*~

Sure enough, a week went by and Thorin woke up for the first time in many weeks without red, itchy eyes. The feeling was almost foreign and Thorin was so ecstatic he sang in the shower, while he dressed, and hadn’t stopped even when he exited his building and stooped to sniff a rose outside Bilbo’s shop.

“Happy this morning, I see.”

Thorin bolted upright, not expecting anyone else to hear him outside that early in the morning. “Uh, hi Bilbo.” He waved, feeling his ears grow warmer by the second. “Good morning.”

“I’d say it is.” He walked over with a watering can, dousing the soil in the pots as he went. He looked up at Thorin and asked, “allergies allieved, I hope?”

Thorin nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “My eyes are much improved, thank you.”

Bilbo bit his lip and looked away shyly. “Does this mean I won’t see you in the shop anymore?”

Thorin smiled at the man’s shyness. He had to admit Bilbo, with his golden hair and ridiculous flowers, had grown on him and he enjoyed seeing him on a regular basis. “I-I mean,” Thorin stammered, “I guess I could still come by.” Then he thought of the vase on his counter upstairs. “I do have that lovely vase you gave me. Would be a shame to see it go empty, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Bilbo coughed into his hand. “Would be quite a shame.”

The two men eyed each other, each smiling nervously, before Thorin spoke again. “Well, I should be getting on-”

“To work, yes!”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Bilbo nodded his head in farewell before retreating back into his shop.

Thorin nearly walked into a lightpole, his head so high in the clouds as it was. It would eventually take Thorin two months and eight more bouquets for him to gather the courage to ask Bilbo out on a proper date. And of course, Bilbo being as enchanted as he was with his puffy eyed neighbor, would say yes.


End file.
